I once had a roommate in college who shunned the usual terms of endearment – the babys, the sweeties, even the pumpkins – and instead affectionately dubbed her boyfriend “Pooper.”  He, (because really, how does one top that?), also called her Pooper.  Did I mention they said it in baby voices?  They did.

Ew?

Yeah, yeah, a rose by any other name and all that.  I get it.  But really ... POOPER??

]]> Pet names that began as actual pet names are more common than you’d think.  Rachel, 34, a lawyer, explains that she called her ex “Schnoogie,” a nickname for her dog. “He would be like, ‘I’m not a fucking dog,’ and then laugh.’”  Jeff, 30, an editor, and his wife, Carina, 30, a doctor, call each other “Chicken,” originally their cat’s name.

“First of all, we started doing it because that's what old man Karamazov calls his little prostitute in The Brother Karamazov, so it has major highbrow bona fides,” he says.  “Except that we didn't actually start doing it to each other.  It was what we called our cat.  But then we had to give the cat back to my sister, and we had this great nickname and no cat to use it on.”

Or sometimes the epithets just sound like what you’d name your animal.
 
“I like to call my man Spot and he calls me Killer,” says Natalie, 25, an artist.  Aww.  “And if you think that’s cute, my dad calls my mom ‘The dead vessel.’ I think it means that they are done having children.  Whatever.  ‘Is the dead vessel speaking again?’ he'll say with this grin on his face. My mom calls my dad ‘sperm donor.’ Yup.  The love runs pretty deep in our household.”

Some couples use pet names to the exclusion of all else.  “Nicole only ever calls me ‘Nate’ if she’s angry, and likewise, it freaks her out if I call her ‘Nicole,’” says Nate, 32, a reporter, of his girlfriend of almost two years.  “My main pet name for her is ‘biscuit.’  Sometimes I call her ‘pickle,’ which she doesn’t like as much.  When she’s PMSing I call her Crazylove, which she doesn’t like at all.”  

Pickle?  How ... romantic?  Although, that wasn’t the weirdest I heard over the course of researching couples’ nicknames.  Try: “Llama,” “Blanket,” “Colt,” “Tiger Twinkies,” and “Moo.”

  “I had a French beau who called me PETIT CHOU and MA PUCE - which means my little cabbage and my flea – and I wondered – are these COMPLIMENTS???” says Karen Salmanson, host of the Sirius radio show Be Happy Damnit.  She got off easy. “Had he been from el Salvador I would have been called MI GORDITA -- which means MY FATTY!”

  “My sister dated a guy she called ‘Fish Boy,’” says Brent, 25, writer. “And a guy I used to work with called his girlfriend ‘Dead Tooth Crack Ho’ (which is a surprisingly descriptive pet name).”

  Wow.  Pooper’s starting to sound pretty good.

  Still, some people aren’t big fans of odd, overly gushy love handles. “Pet names are for little dogs that fit in handbags, not the person you love,” says Jeremy, 33, a lawyer. “Why?  Because it’s cutesie, juvenile crap, people are people, not pets. Pet names belong in high school relationships not between adults.”

  And sometimes the pet name is favored by the giver but not so much the recipient. Angela, 23, in PR, generally uses “babe” with her boyfriend of over a year, but his name for her isn’t quite so … welcome.  “Despite hailing from New York, I managed to pick up the nickname ‘Jerze’ in college, thanks to his frat brothers.  More insulting is that a girl he hooked up with right before was from Connecticut.  She, apparently, was Jerze #1, leaving me as Jerze #2.  I guess when you go to college in Virginia, anyone from the tri-state area is somehow ‘Jersey trash.’  Poor New Jersey.”

“He’s not allowed to call me ‘Jerze #2’ to my face anymore, though,” she reassures me.

“I once knew a guy who called his girlfriend ‘Honey,’” says Jane, 32, a writer. “which we all thought was so sweet until he admitted (not to her) that he did it when he couldn't remember her name. She married someone else.  He’s still single.”

  See?  Use terms of endearment blasphemously and you’ll be smote.

 
CHECK IT OUT
There’s a nickname generator online that asks you to type in your first and last name, and it will generate creative terms of endearment for you.  When I typed in my name, it came up with: “Puppie pot chocolate kisses bon bon.”  Not sure how they derived that from Julia Allison, but ...um ... I suppose at least it’s imaginative.  Although when I typed in the name of a friend, it came up with “Butter Hot Pooh Peepers.”  I might just use that one instead.

Personally, I would prefer that the men I date think of me as a nice-smelling robot – incapable of peeing, farting, burping, menstruating, sweating, or, yeah, #2.  And honestly, I’d be quite content to think the same of them.

It’s not that I’m against bodily functions, per se.  I suppose they have their purposes - toxin excretion, gas discharge, uterine housecleaning, womb regeneration, that sort of thing.  I just don’t think they have a place in the tenuous and judgmental world of dating.

That said, there comes a time in every relationship when the reality of being a living, breathing, and yes, excreting animal becomes difficult to avoid – particularly since most NYC apartments lack extra bathrooms and soundproof walls.  But how long until you can relax your, uh, “standards” in front of your significant other?  Or should you ever?]]> He’s not the only one. “For guys,” says Ned, 41, a magazine writer, “nothing kills it faster than seeing, hearing or even imagining anything involving women and excrement.”

Um, exactly.  There’s a fine line between cute-we’re-comfortable! And murdering the mood … forever.

“I will go to my grave not pooping,” says Maureen, 28, an editor. “Pee is totally different – I can talk to a guy while peeing.  My threshold is shit.”

A college boyfriend of mine regularly peed in front of me, but scuttled back to his dormitory to do anything more, ah, serious.  Another boyfriend used to go down to the lobby of any hotel we were staying at to “get the paper” – which was, of course, code for “I have to take a giant …” well, you know.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the Camouflage-Pee-Sounds-with-Running-Water trick, a widespread coping mechanism during the first few months of dating.

But some guys find peeing … hot?  “There’s a big difference between girl-peeing and guy-peeing,” says Ned. “Girls can actually make it seem sexy.  They’re seated, it’s quiet, and there’s the whole dangling-panties thing.  Guys pee like donkeys.  A guy really shouldn’t pee in a girl’s presence until she pees in his.”

“Depending on how much I like the guy, it’s a few weeks until I turn the water off,” says Madeline, 25, a designer.  “It's the poop that's tough because water isn't helping with the odor. That's the beauty of public bathrooms.  My mom has actually not pooped for weeks while on vacation with even her husbands.  There should probably be a clause added in the vows that a man will still honor and love you no matter how stinky your excrement is!”

“Bottom line,” she says, “when I get married and have my own house, my dream is to have my own toilet!” 

Dare to dream, Madeline.  Dare to dream.

I’ve been on all sorts of dates – some cheap (Queens!), some definitively not (St Barths!).  But as any veteran dater knows, it’s not the total outlay on your black Amex that makes a date extraordinary.  A bargain outing can seem extravagant, while the most expensive can be downright trashy (like the guy who showed me the bill for our super-pricey dinner because it was a “weird” number – $666.  Classy!).

So you can’t (or don’t want to) compete with some private equity guy’s tickets to the Met and helicopters to the Hamptons?   No worries!  Amir Blumenfeld, Ethan Trex and Neel Shah, the three twenty-something rouge authors of Faking It: How to Seem Like a Better Person without Actually Improving Yourself, have brainstormed solutions for just you, you cheapskate.]]>

1)    Take her on the Staten Island Ferry.  Cost: free!  Benefits: a view, a breeze, an ever-romantic tourist view of the Statute of Liberty.  “No tickets are necessary,” says Blumenfeld, “but print out a couple fake ones and hand them to the attendant when you get on the boat.”  Clever! “Then ask somebody where first class is, and before they get a chance to laugh, whisk your date away to the upper deck.”  For “bonus points,” he adds, recite the poem inscribed on the side of the statue.  Thrifty and an intellectual.  Show off.
2)    Convince her the cheap wine is amazing using your psychosomatic prowess.  “When the wine list comes,” says Trex, “frown and say, ‘Man, that must be a typo.  There's this fantastic bottle, but it's the second cheapest on the menu.  Someone's going to get fired over that!’ and order the second cheapest bottle.  It's a lie, but taste buds are extremely suggestible.”  As are women, apparently.
3)    Try a Picnic in the Park.  “It’s a known fact that women love cheese and wine,” says Blumenfeld.  (He is correct.  Also, sugar.)  “For the price of one dinner date you’ll have enough money to purchase a bottle of wine, organic crackers, delicious fruit, and a cheese wheel or two.”  Add some deli flowers and you’re a regular nature-loving Casanova, with enough cash to spring for Starbucks on the walk home.
4)    Do the whole “art museum thing” right.  “Pick an exhibit and do 20-30 minutes of online research about the featured artists and symbolism,” says Trex.  “Then tell your date you've been dying to see this show, casually dropping the facts you learned.”  The result?  “You'll look cultured and passionate rather than someone who was too cheap to take a woman to dinner.”  Clever boy.

1)    Always forgets his wallet.  Even when you've ordered delivery at his house.
2)    Says, “Let’s stay in and cook again! I have this new killer Top Ramen recipe.”
3)    Gives you flowers with roots and dirt coming out of the bottom.
4)    Says, “It’s only 80 blocks, and it’s barely even raining. Come on, let’s walk, it’ll be romantic.”
5)    Shares her studio. “You can’t convert that 12x14 space into three bedrooms,” says Blumenfeld.  “I don’t care how many towels you put up as dividers.”
6)    Convinces you the trash outside of a really nice restaurant is way classier than eating inside a mediocre place.
7)    Doesn't buy Internet service because "there's lot of free signal floating around.”
8)    Says the same thing about laptops.
9)    Makes you go through the subway turnstile with him to save on Metrocard swipes.
10)    Charges you a cover when you come over for drinks.

From the trailer of NBC’s new reality dating show, Age of Love:

“These 40-year-old women have experience, confidence and sophistication. But what if they had to compete with a group of 20-year-olds to win the heart of one of the world’s most eligible bachelors? Will he pick a kitten or a cougar?”

Nothing like a little high-concept reality TV to start off the summer!

Forty-plus, confident, wealthy, with an (in)famously robust sex drive, the modern cougar rose to prominence in pop culture with Kim Cattrall, assorted Desperate Housewives and Stacy’s and Stifler’s moms. Reality television tried out the concept with leggy vintage bombshell Jerry Hall’s VH1 show, Kept (in which she picks a young stud to be her sexual plaything), and former trophy wife Ivana Trump’s Oxygen program, Ivana Young Man. (Her motto? “I’d rather be a baby-sitter than a nurse.”)

That neither was a runaway hit underscores the fact that we haven’t embraced some women’s steadfast refusal to stop being sexy after 40. And yet, here comes Age of Love, hitting us with a perplexing conundrum: “If given the chance to choose a woman in her twenties or a fortysomething on the prowl, will [a man] go for youth or maturity?”

First of all, why is it always the fortysomethings who are “on the prowl”? Have these producers never visited Cancun during spring break?

And maybe these so-called cougars don’t want anything drastically different from their fresh-out-of-college counterparts. “She doesn’t want to get married, cohabit or have kids,” explains 50-ish veteran cougar Valerie Gibson, author of Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men, “but she does wants a good-looking younger man on her arm and she does want to have sex!”

“Once a Cougar gets her claws into you, you’ll have that scar for the rest of your life and I say that with a big smile,” says Steve Santagati, relationship expert and author of The MANual, out this June. As an 18 year old, he hooked up with a woman twice his age. “Put it this way,” he brags, “younger girls may have perky chests, but older women know how to use their bodies.”

Ryan, 29, an artist, agrees. “They just want to use you because you’re young, in shape and have stamina—but being used is awesome.”

Expert, n.: a person who has a comprehensive or authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area. Or, someone who says they do.

Much to my amusement, I’ve been the “expert” on a variety of subjects (including Paris Hilton, presidential politics, American Idol and the Wii) about which I possess little expertise—much less “comprehensive or authoritative” knowledge. I’ve never even seen the Wii, dammit! 

I’ve also been called a relationship expert. This, on the other hand, I am.

With no formal qualifications—as one ex said, “It’s not like you passed a bar exam for sexperts”—can anyone do this? In a world where a heavyset man (Dr. Phil) gives diet advice and an old woman (Dr. Ruth) opines on sex, it’s  funny anyone bothers with a pesky little thing like “credentials.” Lots of people consider themselves dating experts. Just yesterday a cab driver gave me an unsolicited lecture on love, including unique suggestions for where to meet “zee seengle meeen.”

While I never turn down free advice, however random, true relationship expertise requires more than being a regular Dr. Drew listener. It’s one part sociology, two parts psychology, a dash of anatomy and physiology, a lot of experience and the desire to think through human relations for hours. (Bonus if one has few inhibitions, no tact, and is willing to never be taken seriously outside of Harlequin conventions.)

“A relationship expert is someone who has learned about love through experience and not in a classroom,” says dating coach Matt Titus. “Someone who’s been through many romances, grown from the good ones and learned from the bad.”

Absolutely—and as my mother says, “Well, you certainly have been around the block a few, uh, dozen, times.” (Thanks, Mom!) It’s not just about the trips, though, it’s really about what you pick up on the way. Being a relationship expert is like being any kind of expert; you do your research—both of the bookish sort (real scientists study this stuff!) and, by gathering the anecdotes of others, analyzing them, contrasting them, and coming to conclusions.

That doesn’t mean I always have the answers—yep, even I sometimes have no idea why he didn’t call. Odds are he probably just wasn’t that into me. See? Who’s the expert now?!?

At the beginning, I found it romantic—the wine, the candles, the very tiny artichokes in our salads. But after a while, the meals started to blur together. And then, I realized I had not only gained 15 pounds (a solid 15 pounds), but the very idea of ordering $28 salmon made me long for a sandwich from my deli and a night alone with my TV.

I had overdosed on dinner dates. I’m still detoxing, in fact. And I’m not the only one.

For most Manhattan women, a year or two of being “dinner whores” gets it out of their system. It’s not that the food isn’t good—it is! And it’s not that we don’t like to eat—we do! It’s that it’s boring. Mind-numbingly, calorie-poundingly, unimaginatively, tediously boring.

“There are only so many dinners you can go on before the repetition—appetizer, entrée, wine, should we get dessert?—kills your soul,” says Meghan, 25. “The best date is when you’re actually doing something.”

You know, a walk in the park, Rollerblading, trapeze class. There are plenty of fun activities that don’t involve napkins and gratuity.

“I think most men are just unimaginative when it comes to dates,” explains Adam, 38, an entertainment executive. “They forget there are options other than $50 macaroni and cheese at the Waverly Inn. Besides, no one wants a girl to think he’s cheap!”

Ah, Adam. If you really want to stand out, buy her shoes. Seriously. Shoes. I’ve gone on hundreds of dates, and on 99 percent of those outings, the guy spent a great deal on fancy food that probably gave me indigestion. You know, I can’t even remember, actually, since they’re all part of the jumble of my romantic dining memory. But there’s one date I’ll never forget: He took me to Barneys and surprised me with a pair of black suede Manolo Blahniks. It wasn’t so much that they were expensive; it was that no one had ever done that for me before (or, cough, since). They were the cost of two or three fancy dinners, but I still wear them three years later. I wore them today, actually.

And the guy? He will live on in my heart.  And yes, my feet.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
Tomorrow will be dying.

I'm not usually one for quoting 400-year-old poetry, but I have to give it to Herrick – he knew whereof he spoke.  Except for that whole "virgin" part (and, well, the use of "ye"), seizing the romantic day is about as modern a sentiment as anything – particularly in Manhattan on the cusp of summer.

I’ve never gone on spring break.  Oh sure, I thought about it.  Watched MTV on it.  Practiced “going wild” in front of my mirror to prepare for it.  But for some reason, I made it through my entire college career without ever experiencing the triple sweetness that is Simultaneous severe alcohol poisoning, Sunstroke and STDs … in a beach-centric locale, of course.

I sincerely regret missing out – shockingly, those things just aren’t as much fun once you’ve graduated.

But you, my wanton cupcakes, still have time!  In order to engage in the maximum amount of tropical debauchery before rent, gravity and liver failure take effect, follow my advice below.

Then get your ass on a plane to Mexico, sew a little pocket into your swimsuit to hold the condom and repeat this mantra to yourself: never again will I have so many more or less naked, nubile 19-year-olds wanting to jump my bones (unless I intend to become a professional athlete).

In other words, gather ye rosebuds, bitches.  You're in for a ride.

Dr. Drew once referred to spring break as the “Super Bowl of hookups.” (Although, really, wouldn’t the actual Super Bowl be the Super Bowl of hookups?)  Obviously his comment was intended as negative, but I choose not to see it that way.  SB is more like your big chance to get “being a giant ho” out of your system, so when you arrive back on campus, you can return to your normal, non-promiscuous self.  (Rrright.)

The goal: Hook up as much as possible with as few venereal disease ridden mates as possible.

How?  Well, you could go the traditional route and, you know, USE CONDOMS.

Or you could take the tactic of this recent Princeton graduate: “Leave a cup full of fresh squeezed lemon juice on the bedside table.  When you bring a girl home, dip your fingers in it and if the girl experiences any, uh, discomfort, give her the boot.”

He calls it the “Open Sore Test” (classy!)  Says a friend of his, “Hey, it’s kept him (mostly) STD free despite 100+ lady friends.”  A rousing endorsement.

#2: If you see the GGW trucks, run.

As ABC News reported recently, “some women on spring break will flash the entire Western world at the drop of a hat.”

And thanks to Joe Francis and his team of hat-distributing, release-wielding seducers, the entire Western world is able to watch them do so.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little flashing.  But flashing with recording devices nearby?  Maybe not the best decision.

So don’t get distracted by video crews offering you free shots for stripping down and making out with your best friend.  Your father will see this and he will disown you.  After he buys a copy.  You know, just to see.

#3: Avoid photographic evidence.

Digital cameras + illegal and/or immoral activity = bad.

Put simply: What happens in Cancun stays in Cancun only if you don’t post it on Facebook, dumbass.

It’ll just be that much more difficult to convince your girlfriend that you didn’t bang three other chicks if she sees Flickr photos of you doing body shots off of boob-job blondes.  Who happen to be naked.

Do yourself a favor and bribe your friends to delete the compromising pix.  Or just throw them in the pool.  Either way.

#4: Cheating on spring break isn’t cheating if you lie.

See #3.

#5:  There is no such thing as a bad spring break hook up.  Unless they pee on you.

Aside from hooking up on the floor of a Mexican bar (gross), or in a bathroom (small and gross), the standards for sexual encounters on SB are just so much lower (drunker?) than normal, it’s difficult to sink to the level of “bad.”

Take “Mick,” a senior at UW Madison, who ‘breaked it up in Acapulco last year.  “Me and the girl I met at a party, hooked up, then I had to bail her out of jail.”  A turn-off, right?  No, says Mick.  “It made the hook up even better.”

Only on spring break, kids.  Only on spring break.

Name:  Mike Harrison
Age: Old with a British Accent
School: Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK – degree in Chemistry, Phd in Polymer Chemistry
Official Title: Senior Principal Scientist for Trojan
Cool Title: Condom Tester

How, exactly, does one test condoms?  Just put ‘em on and see what happens?
No.  The main stability test involves unrolling the condom onto a specialized post and forcing air into it until it expands to 40 liters in size.  Then you measure the pressure when the condom bursts.

The Official Intelligence-Pulchritude Fairness Equation usually works like this: you either get beauty, or you get brains.  You don’t get both.  And you certainly don’t get to go to Yale and simultaneously be a professional model.  That just pisses people off.

The novel – which resulted from Hazelwood’s inexplicable belief that modeling was “much darker and more pathetic than it’s typically portrayed” – features such shocking (shocking!) topics like drugs!  Eating disorders!  Skeezy older men hitting on nubile younger women! (um … Gia anyone?)

I sat down with the (obviously) statuesque Hazelwood, who was “surprised at the extent that people – even at a school like Yale – were intrigued” with her unique extracurricular. Ultimately, she explains, “Yale and modeling kinda negated each other.”  Tough life, eh?

Here, her thoughts on a few model-slash-student issues:

On modeling while in college:  “Before I went to Yale, I was like, ‘Ohmygosh, I’m entering this intellectual bastion – at lunch people are going to talk about Proust and Nietzsche.  No one can know you’re a model!’  The secret got out, of course.”

On sacrifice: “I did sacrifice – I wasn’t really drinking a lot of beers around the keg.  I mean, I would go to parties but I would be, like, drinking water.  That was sorta lame.”

On trying not to intimidate people: “I bent over backward to be super nice and self-deprecating and I definitely dressed slobbily.  I wouldn’t even look in the mirror in the bathroom.  I felt like everybody was watching me like ‘She’s so vain, she actually stared at herself in the mirror!’ And I wasn’t telling people I was jetting off to the Caribbean or Tahoe.  It just doesn’t go over that well, you know?”

On collegiate jealousy:  “Girls told me that their boyfriends had said I was hot.  I would feel bad – their boyfriends were jerks!  I guess they were thinking I was a bitch for being the one their boyfriend said was hot.  That was a weird dynamic.”

On being the dangers of hawking tampons:  “As a model, you think twice about doing a feminine product commercial, but I was leaving the business so I didn’t care how it might affect my reputation.  It never occurred to me that it might affect my reputation at school too!  Playtex ran that commercial constantly. I would have guys coming up to me in the hallway saying, ‘Umm, I saw your ad on television.’  They would turn all red and stammer, so I would say, ‘Oh. For Playtex.’ And they would nod, relieved that they didn’t have to utter the T word.”

What the modeling world thought of Yale:  “No one cared!  In modeling, you can’t really win going to school.  The fact that it was Yale or any school didn’t really matter.  The whole time I was modeling it was just an incessant drumbeat to get me to quit.”

On men: “By default, I got the more aggressive and obnoxious guys because they’re the ones who have the confidence to ask me out.  The jerk comes up and monopolizes your time – so even if a nice guy was going to take a chance, they’re not going to.  Then there are the Model-Fuckers – they chase after you down the street and hand you their card – they’re like ‘Call me, Call me, Call me.’  And you’re just like, ‘You’re such a loser.’”

Name-dropping Yale out of desperation: “‘I’m a model’ is a polarizing statement – people are either like ‘Really?’ and they ask a lot of questions or they become disdainful.  And the latter would immediately start talking to me in monosyllables.  So sometimes, because I didn’t like to be talked to as if I was four, I found myself dropping the school.  Just so they would talk to me like an adult.”